Here is the recorded version of Signalnoise Broadcast 14, which aired yesterday afternoon at 3pm EST. Once again, numerous familiar names attended with lots of great questions and topics. During the hour we discussed the Signalnoise t-shirt launch and the specifics behind production, the strength and weakness of stock photography, Hobo with a Shotgun vs. Hugo Stiglitz, Norwegian black metal, the future of the Signalnoise t-shirt line, pursuing your personal projects, the story behind my Daft Punk poster, and a bunch more stuff.

So, have a look at the recorded version, and be sure to tune in next week for Signalnoise Broadcast 15. It may be taking place on Wednesday next time around, but I will be sure to tweet the time switch. Thanks everyone!

The night before the online launch, I decided to have a “Presale for Pals” at my condo. I invited over some good friends who have been supporting me all this time to have a first look at the new t-shirts before they hit the Signalnoise Store. We had a great time and I managed to get some shirts to some happy folks. Huge thanks to everyone who came out.

My pal Chris Toms took all of these great shots as the evening progressed. Thanks man!

I am very proud to announce the official launch of the Signalnoise line of designer t-shirts, now available for purchase in the Signalnoise Store. This project has been many years in the making, and I’m really excited to offer some new, fun apparel.

The Story

I’ve been a designer for my entire adult life from 1998 to 2010, working at a variety of local agencies here in Halifax as well as working on a freelance basis for many big international clients. For the duration of that time I have never stopped working on personal projects on my own time, continuing to push forward with my personal skills and ambitions as an independent artist. One of the dreams I’ve had since my teens is designing my own line of cool and fun t-shirts.

So, in June of 2010, I decided the time for talk was over. I quit my full-time design job to properly invest my own time and money into the Signalnoise line of designer t-shirts, which I am excited to unveil today. I wanted to do everything my own way in order to keep that same level of excitement I had back in my teens when I started thinking about my own t-shirts. The shirts are sketched, designed, printed, packed and shipped right here in Halifax, Nova Scotia with no investors, business loans or start-up cash. 100% of the investment is my own, and inspired by guys like Scott Hansen, Johnny Cupcakes and Joshua Smith who are rockin’ it independently. This is grassroots, man. Right where I want to be.

This project has also brought me back to illustration, something I’ve been doing since the age of 4 but was replaced in recent years by the computer. I’m happy to be taking Signalnoise into a new direction that brings me back to where I started, with a pencil and a piece of paper. Although this time around, I won’t be stealing mom’s good typewriter paper. :)

On top of that, I took great care in creating the supporting materials to promote my t-shirt line, including the packaging, freebies, look book, photography and the commercial you see above. I saw the commercial as a challenge because I’ve never created one before, so I wrote, designed and edited the whole thing just to see if I could do it. And with the help of a few friends the whole thing came together in a hilarious way. Huge thanks to Nick Campbell for creating the awesome 3D Signalnoise intro sequence, Chris Toms for shooting all the video and photographs, and Lucas Gardiner for creating the excellent music track. You guys rule.

About the Shirts

All of the Signalnoise t-shirts are printed right here in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I even had to haul all the boxes back here myself. All are silk-screened on Gildan 2000 t-shirts: 100% Cotton preshrunk, double needle top-stitched neckline, double stitched sleeve and waist hems, and seamless collar with taped neck and shoulders.

These 4 designs are currently available in S, M, L, XL and XXL on unisex t-shirts. I will be offering ladies cuts in the near future as I expand, but for now I only have unisex versions of the designs. All t-shirt orders are shipped in a quality, black zip-locked bag to protect from moisture, along with a free swag bag which contains Signalnoise stickers, buttons and other little fun items as a way of saying thanks for your support.

This first run is fairly limited, so if you are looking at grabbing one of the kick-off Signalnoise shirts you might want to hurry in case they go fast! Ordering begins today for this first run and shipping will begin next week.

In Conclusion

Will this Signalnoise t-shirt line be a successful endeavor? Well, this is a gamble on my part so only time will tell. But I can promise you I will be working as hard as I can to bring new and fun ideas to this project, both from the design side and the promotional side. This has been a dream of mine for quite some time, so it’s time to put the pedal to the metal.

Thanks so much everyone for the constant support and encouragement. Whether you went out of your way to send me an email or throw a note via Twitter, your support and kind words are extremely inspiring and I appreciate each and every one. It’s easy to stay motivated when you have such wonderful people egging you on, you guys are awesome.

So, swing on over to the Signalnoise Store to check out the new Signalnoise t-shirts!

Here is a silly outtake from the t-shirt shoot we did at Strange Adventures comic shop yesterday evening. Chris Toms brought his camera for some photos of the shirts, his wife Sameen shot a bit of behind the scenes video and my good buddy Cal (owner of the comic shop) was gracious enough to help us out with lighting and setting things up. Thanks so much, gang!

Today is going to be a busy one. I’ll be finishing up all the loose ends for the shirt launch tomorrow, including supporting collateral, writing for the blog and store, additional graphics and promo items and a bunch more stuff. I’m even having a small event at my place this evening for close friends to have a first look and purchase some shirts.

So, enough goofin’ around on the web. Tomorrow is a big day, time to get rockin’.

I was asked by Halifax director Andrew Bush to create the logo for his upcoming film, Roller Town. After watching the trailer and seeing some recognizable Halifax actors and comedians starring in a parody of 1970’s roller skating culture, how could I say no? The logo is a shined up version of the old Roller Boogie logo from the 70s. Had lots of fun on this one.

The logo isn’t in there yet, but I highly recommend checking out the trailer. It had me laughing my ass off. Halifax might be a small city but we sure have a lot of diverse talent here:

If you missed tuning into Signalnoise Broadcast 13 yesterday afternoon, here is the recorded version. This was a standard open QA discussion where we hit topics such as where design ideas begin, website/print design, bigger client vs. smaller clients, freelance financial issues, some of my favorite artists, origins of the Signalnoise name, more previews and information about the Signalnoise t-shirt line, and much more.

Thanks to everyone who tuned in, and be sure to mark next Thursday on your calendars for Signalnoise Broadcast 14.

I’ve been a fan of The Rocketeer for quite some time after being reintroduced to the franchise by my pal Dave Howlett. The movie is fantastic and the comics are even better. But I can remember when seeing that amazing Rocketeer poster kicking around the theater back in the early 90s, and I always loved it. So here it is, along with a bunch of other work by the artist, John Mattos.

My jaw hit the floor when I discovered this stuff. Such smooth vectors and beautiful color palettes inspired my art deco and vintage travel posters. I would really like to get a glimpse into John’s creative process, where he starts and what references he draws upon.

You can check out John’s Behance account for more of his excellent illustration work.

I wrote a post a little while back about the importance of the sketchbook, and how it fits into the creative process. In my experience, that’s where many ideas can be thrown around quickly before moving to the computer.

But for my upcoming t-shirt line I’ve decided to keep a project notebook on hand at all times. My sketchbook isn’t huge but it’s large enough to be a bit cumbersome in terms of portability, so I decided for the first time to keep a little notebook around to jot down ideas whenever they pop into my head. We have all said “Oh, that’s a good idea. Have to remember to write that down.”, and we inevitably forget it 2 minutes later.

This little notebook has been a pretty valuable asset over the past while. Instead of trying to remember all these weird ideas I have, I’ll write it down immediately and maybe doodle a few roughs to keep the idea pure. After that, maybe a week or so later, I’ll look through the idea list and rough up some more completed sketches before scanning and working the design in Illustrator.

It’s a small step in the creative process, but its comforting to know I have a backlog of t-shirt ideas sitting on my coffee table. Incidentally, the notebook I’m using was designed by Joshua Davis and I picked it up at his solo show in Toronto last year.